A Last Demise
by Beringae
Summary: He pitied her. She would be forced to live with a man she didn’t love and constant memories of the man she did. Dying was a better way.


Disclaimer: I do not own anything from _Pirates of the Caribbean_. Happy now, Disney people?

-

There would be no escaping this time. Norrington would make sure of that, he was sure, with all the guards and redcoats the commodore could get his hands on. His luck, it seemed, had finally run out.

The cell was cold even in the midday heat of the Caribbean. He leaned against the wall, hat slung low over his eyes to block the bright light that streamed through the bars at the window. He didn't want to see the sun. These last hours didn't matter, anyway. 

She had been so soft, so perfect beneath the roughness of his fingers. His heart ached as the image of her face flashed briefly before his eyes. Even now, as he sat awaiting his end, he itched to run his hands down the entire length of her, the edge of her breast, the supple slenderness of her waist, the curve of hip and thigh. He wanted to hear the small, heartbreaking sounds she made when he moved inside her. He wanted to see her one last time.  

It had been so innocent, their love. Innocent and forbidden. He hadn't thought he _could_ love, but she showed him. It was her who had given him their first kiss. It had been a soft kiss, and he had all but gasped at the sheer pleasure and warmth it spread through his limbs. After she'd withdrawn, he had whispered her name, as he did now between parched lips. "Elizabeth. . ."

Ever since he saw her on that blasted island burning his beloved drink to the heavens, he knew. He knew that she would be the woman to break his heart. All the whores and womanly company he could find would not satisfy his yearning for her, and he had tried. Oh yes, he had tried. For three years he never returned to Port Royal. Three years he had tried to forget the woman with the long, caramel colored hair and rose-tinted lips. But he could not forget, and so his ship had come back one day into the harbor he had sailed into on a tiny dinghy three years before. He'd found the Turner first in the now familiar blacksmith shop. They had greeted each other like brothers. 

He had been fooled by Bootstrap's son. So alike in appearances, but personality and loyalty, that was another matter completely. He'd overlooked the boy's shortcomings merely because he had known his father. Now, sitting in his cell, he nearly cursed himself for his own stupidity.

That first glimpse of her as she'd opened the door to them after three years of envisioning her face again and again had nearly killed him. She was beautiful. 

She'd corrected him when he addressed her as Miss Swann. "It's Mrs. Turner, now." She'd said, winding her arm though her husband's and planting a chaste kiss on his cheek. She hadn't noticed their visitor's eyes darken with emotion. 

It was Turner who had found them, entangled within the sheets of his own bed as they made love. He remembered watching the woman he loved cower against the wall as her husband had administered blow after blow against her body. Her perfect body. Turner had been shouting at her, calling her a common whore and screaming about loyalty. 

He had stood, motionless; watching the scene before him play out like a story one only heard of and never saw. But no, it was real, and before he could process the events, he had been on the man who had been hurting her. Elizabeth, his Elizabeth. His fist collided repeatedly with Turner's face. He couldn't stop. She had been screaming.

He had fled to Tortuga. If one wanted to disappear, Tortuga was the town to go. And he had disappeared. 

Those days were torture. He had nothing but thoughts of her and rum to keep his sanity intact. But all was lost. All was in vain, for Turner had betrayed him. No one knew were he was, save for her. Her husband, apparently, had beaten it out of her. He didn't blame her for telling him.

 The Port Royal navy had come, pounding at his door and shouting. They were so loud. 

And so he sat, awaiting his death. He wished he had some rum. 

-

He blinked as the sunlight met his eyes and the scent of too many people in too small of a space assaulted his nostrils. He cast his gaze over the rapidly accumulating crowds, searching for her. He instead found a stoic-faced Turner, and held the younger man's stare for several moments, watching him recoil slightly at the hatred that he knew was emanating from his own eyes. 

She was crying silent tears that she let fall unhindered down her bruised face. He could see the light twinkling off the salty streams that lay against her cheeks and throat. He longed to go to her and brush them away with his fingers, but the guards that held him captive shoved him roughly before he could act upon his thoughts. His breath hitched as he saw her cover her face with her hands. He thought he might weep at the sadness he distinguished in her eyes.

He was standing on the gallows now, arms bound and noose around his neck. The voice of the man announcing his crimes was muffled to his ears; he'd heard them all before. 

Neither of them had voiced their love for one another, but both knew they didn't have to. He knew by the way she touched him, whether it was stroking his arm as they conversed softly in the early hours of the morning or her fingernails digging into his back as she cried out beneath him. Yes, he knew that she loved him. 

He pitied her. She would be forced to live with a man she didn't love and with constant memories of the man she did. Dying was a better way. 

He wasn't afraid to die. He had eluded death for so long it only seemed natural that it would one day catch up with him. Nor was he afraid of pain, although he was sure he would feel it, however brief it was. He knew he would not live long after the wood paneling beneath his feet gave out from underneath him. 

He felt suddenly as if he was weightless and floating once more on the surface of the ocean, before reality struck him brutally and he plummeted to the ground. He closed his eyes. He did not want his eyes to be left open in death.

"Jack! No!" She was calling to him. Her voice was distant and he could glimpse the blurred shape of skirts as they cut through the crowd. 

But he never felt the kisses she would shower across his neck and face as they cut him down from the noose, his body falling in a thump into the dust, nor would he know that her tears were dropping in rapid succession against his shirt as she lay her head against his chest, sobbing. He would never see the traitorous man who he had once respected stand over his body, his face expressionless. He never heard the declaration he'd always wished for but never needed spring from the lips of the woman he loved between cries of anguish. A declaration of love.

-                               


End file.
